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PKK Crime Network, The So-Called Freedom FightersTue, 03 Mar 2015 06:00:17 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef8_1425379760
KurultaiPKK Reality
Freedom fighters or a crime network?
According to Robert Fragnito from the Stratfor Institute , the estimated budget of PKK which aims to create international pressure and antipathy against Turkey is about $86 Billion.
PKK uses heroin production and trafficking to support its acts of terror (1996 INCS). Engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering activities and is well-established in the production of almost all kinds of opium products and their smuggling. Other sources of revenue of the PKK as extortion, robbery and counterfeiting.
* Turkish Gendarmerie forces confiscate 15.4 tons of hashish belonging to PKK
The revenues used for purchasing firearms, munitions and other equipment used by the terrorists. Narcotics smuggling therefore constitutes a major part of the PKK's financial apparatus, alongside extortion, blackmailing, robbery, arms smuggling and illicit labor trafficking.
The revenues gained from illicit drug dealings and marketing are channeled to funding its arms purchases, which is required to sustain its terrorist activities.
Abdullah "Ocalan
An iconic peace-maker or a drug lord?
The PKK is actively involved in all phases of narcotics trafficking, from the producing and processing of the drugs to their smuggling and marketing. It is stated that the PKK is engaged in producing, refining and marketing of drugs and has contacts in numerous countries.
PKK's involvement in narcotics trafficking through Turkey, reiterates that the PKK not only uses "taxes" extracted from narcotics traffickers and refiners to finance its operations, but "may be more directly involved in transporting and marketing narcotics in Europe" as well (INCS 1998).
The PKK's "turnover" from drug trafficking is estimated at "millions of US dollars". Narcotics trafficking has entered Parisian suburbs thanks to the PKK, is responsible for 10 to 80 percent of the heroin smuggled to Paris.
Abdullah "Ocalan, the leader of the PKK who is responsible for the deaths of more than 30,000 Turkish troops and civilians has been serving a life term on the prison island of Imrali in the Marmara Sea on terrorism charges since 1999.
For the past 30 years, the PKK has conducted a low-level guerrilla war in eastern Turkey aimed at creating an independent Kurdish state.
Operating mainly from bases in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, the PKK continues to target Turkish military and civilian administrative targets and energy installations, and, less frequently, Western tourists visiting Turkish resorts.
* Terrorist Abdullah "Ocalan
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef8_1425379760KurultaiPKK Crime Network, The So-Called Freedom FightersTurkey, Anatolia, PKK, Kurdish, Terrorism, YPG, Syria, United States, America, Europe, Turkish, Russia, Obama, Erdogan, Putin, France, UK, EU, US, PYD, Iraq, ISIS, Daesh, KurdUkraine Finance Minister, Known for Shady <span class="highlight">Dealings</span>, Shares Her &quot;American Values&quot; with KievThu, 26 Feb 2015 11:40:14 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=46d_1424968542
TruelUkraine Finance Minister, Known for Shady Dealings, Shares Her "American Values" with Kiev
"Among the arguments for why Americans should risk nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine is that the regime that took power in a coup last year "shares our values." But one of those "values" - personified by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko - may be the skill of using insider connections
This article originally appeared at Consortium News http://russia-insider.com/en/ukraine/2015/02/19/3651
Ukraine's new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has become the face of reform for the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev and will be a key figure handling billions of dollars in Western financial aid, was at the center of insider deals and other questionable activities when she ran a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund.
Prior to taking Ukrainian citizenship and becoming Finance Minister last December, Jaresko was a former U.S. diplomat who served as chief executive officer of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by Congress in the 1990s and overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine.
But Jaresko, who was limited to making $150,000 a year at WNISEF under the U.S. AID grant agreement, managed to earn more than that amount, reporting in 2004 that she was paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF's public filing with the Internal Revenue Service.
Later, Jaresko's compensation was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two entities in 2006: Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF's investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF) to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals.
Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which "serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA," according to WNISEF's IRS filing for 2006 .
U.S. AID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships - and even allowed WNISEF to spend millions of dollars helping EEGF become a follow-on private investment firm - despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies.
For instance, WNISEF's 2012 annual report devoted two pages to "related party transactions," including the management fees to Jaresko's Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF's co-investments in projects with the EEGF, where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer . Jaresko's Horizon Capital managed the investments of both WNISEF and EEGF.
From 2007 to 2011, WNISEF co-invested $4.25 million with EEGF in Kerameya LLC, a Ukrainian brick manufacturer, and WNISEF sold EEGF 15.63 percent of Moldova's Fincombank for $5 million, the report said. It also listed extensive exchanges of personnel and equipment between WNISEF and Horizon Capital. But it's difficult for an outsider to ascertain the relative merits of these insider deals and the transactions apparently raised no red flags for U.S. AID officials.
Bonuses for Officers
Regarding compensation, WNISEF's 2013 filing with the IRS noted that the fund's officers collected millions of dollars in bonuses for closing out some investments at a profit even as the overall fund was losing money. According to the filing, WNISEF's $150 million nest egg had shrunk by more than one-third to $94.5 million and likely has declined much more during the economic chaos that followed the U.S.-back coup in February 2014.
But prior to the coup and the resulting civil war, Jaresko's WNISEF was generously spreading money around. For instance, the 2013 IRS filing reported that the taxpayer-financed fund paid out as "expenses" $7.7 million under a bonus program, including $4.6 million to "current officers," without identifying who received the money.
The filing made the point that the "long-term equity incentive plan" was "not compensation from Government Grant funds but a separately USAID-approved incentive plan funded from investment sales proceeds" - although those proceeds presumably would have gone into the depleted WNISEF pool if they had not been paid out as bonuses.
The filing also said the bonuses were paid regardless of whether the overall fund was making money, noting that this "compensation was not contingent on revenues or net earnings, but rather on a profitable exit of a portfolio company that exceeds the baseline value set by the board of directors and approved by USAID" - with Jaresko also serving as a director on the board responsible for setting those baseline values.
Another WNISEF director was Jeffrey C. Neal, former chairman of Merrill Lynch's global investment banking and a co-founder of Horizon Capital, further suggesting how potentially incestuous these relationships may have become.
Though compensation for Jaresko and other officers was shifted outside public view after 2006 - as their pay was moved to the affiliated entities - the 2006 IRS filing says: "It should be noted that as long as HCA earns a management fee from WNISEF, HCA and HCAD must ensure that a salary cap of $150,000 is adhered to for the proportion of salary attributable to WNISEF funds managed relative to aggregate funds under management."
But that language would seem to permit compensation well above $150,000 if it could be tied to other managed funds, including EEGF, or come from the incentive program. Such compensation for Jaresko and the other top officers was not reported on later IRS forms despite a line for earnings from "related organizations." Apparently, Horizon Capital and EEGF were regarded as "unrelated organizations" for the purposes of reporting compensation.
Neither AID officials nor Jaresko responded to specific questions about WNISEF's possible conflicts of interest, how much money Jaresko made from her involvement with WNISEF and its connected companies, and whether she had fully complied with IRS reporting requirements.
Shared Values?
Despite such ethical questions, Jaresko was cited by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman as an exemplar of the new Ukrainian leaders who "share our values" and deserve unqualified American support. Friedman uncritically quoted Jaresko's speech to international financial leaders at Davos, Switzerland, in which she castigated Russian President Vladimir Putin:
"Putin fears a Ukraine that demands to live and wants to live and insists on living on European values - with a robust civil society and freedom of speech and religion with a system of values the Ukrainian people have chosen and laid down their lives for."
However, Jaresko has shown little regard for transparency or other democratic values, such as the right of free speech when it comes to someone questioning her financial dealings. For instance, she has gone to great lengths to block her ex-husband Ihor Figlus from exposing what he regards as her questionable business ethics.
In 2012, when Figlus tried to blow the whistle on what he saw as improper loans that Jaresko had taken from Horizon Capital Associates to buy and expand her stake in EEGF, the privately held follow-on fund to WNISEF, Jaresko sent her lawyers to court to silence him and, according to his lawyer, bankrupt him.
The filings in Delaware's Chancery Court are remarkable not only because Jaresko succeeded in getting the Court to gag her ex-husband through enforcement of a non-disclosure agreement but the Court agreed to redact nearly all the business details, even the confidentiality language at the center of the case.
Since Figlus had given some of his information to a Ukrainian journalist, the court complaint also had the look of a leak investigation, tracking down Figlus's contacts with the journalist and then using that evidence to secure the restraining order, which Figlus said not only prevented him from discussing business secrets but even talking about his more general concerns about Jaresko's insider dealings.
The heavy redactions make it hard to fully understand Figlus's concerns or to assess the size of Jaresko's borrowing as she expanded her holdings in EEGF, but Figlus did assert that he saw his role as whistle-blowing about improper actions by Jaresko.
In a Oct. 31, 2012, filing , Figlus's attorney wrote that "At all relevant times, Defendant acted in good faith and with justification, on matters of public interest, and particularly the inequitable conduct set forth herein where such inequitable conduct adversely affects ... at least one other limited partner which is REDACTED, and specifically the inequitable conduct included, in addition to the other conduct cited herein, REDACTED."
The filing added: "The Plaintiffs' claims are barred, in whole or in part, by public policy, and particularly that a court in equity should not enjoin 'whistle-blowing' activities on matters of public interest, and particularly the inequitable conduct set forth herein." But the details of that conduct were all redacted.
Free Speech
In a defense brief dated Dec. 17, 2012 Part One and Part Two ], Figlus expanded on his argument that Jaresko's attempts to have the court gag him amounted to a violation of his constitutional right of free speech:
"The obvious problem with the scope of their Motion is that Plaintiffs are asking the Court to enter an Order that prohibits Defendant Figlus from exercising his freedom of speech without even attempting to provide the Court with any Constitutional support or underpinning for such impairment of Figlus' rights.
"Plaintiffs cannot do so, because such silencing of speech is Constitutionally impermissible, and would constitute a denial of basic principles of the Bill of Rights in both the United States and Delaware Constitutions. There can be no question that Plaintiffs are seeking a temporary injunction, which constitutes a prior restraint on speech. ...
"The Court cannot, consistent with the Federal and State Constitutional guarantees of free speech, enjoin speech except in the most exceptional circumstances, and certainly not when Plaintiffs are seeking to prevent speech that is not even covered by the very contractual provision upon which they are relying.
"Moreover, the Court cannot prevent speech where the matter has at least some public interest REDACTED, except as limited to the very specific and exact language of the speaker's contractual obligation."
Figlus also provided a narrative of events as he saw them as a limited partner in EEGF, saying he initially "believed everything she was doing, you know, was proper." Later, however, Figlus "learned that Jaresko began borrowing money from HCA REDACTED, but again relied on his spouse, and did not pay attention to the actual financial transactions...
"In early 2010, after Jaresko separated from Figlus, she presented Figlus with, and requested that he execute, a 'Security Agreement,' pledging the couple's partnership interest to the repayment of the loans from HCA. This was Figlus first realization of the amount of loans that Jaresko had taken, and that the partnership interest was being funded through this means. ...By late 2011, Jaresko had borrowed approximately REDACTED from HCA to both fund the partnership interest REDACTED. The loans were collateralized only by the EEFG partnership interest. ...
"Figlus became increasingly concerned about the partnership and the loans that had been and continued to be given to the insiders to pay for their partnership interests, while excluding other limited partners. Although Figlus was not sophisticated in these matters, he considered that it was inappropriate that HCA was giving loans to insiders to fund their partnership interests, but to no other partners. ...
"He talked to an individual at U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington D.C., because the agency was effectively involved as a limited partner because of the agency's funding and supervision over WNISEF, but the agency employee did not appear interested in pursuing the question."
A Spousal Dispute
Meanwhile, Jaresko's lawyers mocked Figlus's claims that he was acting as a whistle-blower, claiming that he was actually motivated by a desire "to harm his ex-wife" and had violated the terms of his non-disclosure agreement, which the lawyers convinced the court to exclude from the public record.
The plaintiffs' brief Part One and Part Two ] traces Figlus's contacts with the Ukrainian reporter whose name is also redacted:
"Figlus, having previously received an audit from the General Partner, provided it to REDACTED with full knowledge that the audit was non-public. Also on or about October 2, 2012, REDACTED contacted multiple Limited Partners, informed them that he possessed 'documented proof' of alleged impropriety by the General Partner and requested interviews concerning that alleged impropriety."
The filing noted that on Oct. 3, 2012, the reporter told Figlus that Jaresko "called two REDACTED editors last night crying, not me, for some reason." (The Ukrainian story was never published.)
After the competing filings, Jaresko's lawyers successfully secured a restraining order against Figlus from the Delaware Chancery Court and are continuing to pursue the case against him though his lawyer has asserted that his client will make no further effort to expose these financial dealings and is essentially broke.
On May 14, 2014, Figlus filed a complaint with the court claiming that he was being denied distributions from his joint interest in EEGF and saying he was told that it was because the holding was pledged as security against the loans taken out by Jaresko.
But, on the same day, Jaresko's lawyer, Richard P. Rollo, contradicted that assertion, saying information about Figlus's distributions was being withheld because EEGF and Horizon Capital "faced significant business interruptions and difficulties given the political crisis in Ukraine."
The filing suggested that the interlocking investments between EEGF and the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF were experiencing further trouble from the political instability and civil war sweeping across Ukraine. By last December, Jaresko had resigned from her WNISEF-related positions, taken Ukrainian citizenship and started her new job as Ukraine's Finance Minister.
In an article about Jaresko's appointment, John Helmer, a longtime foreign correspondent in Russia, disclosed the outlines of the court dispute with Figlus and identified the Ukrainian reporter as Mark Rachkevych of the Kyiv Post.
"It hasn't been rare for American spouses to go into the asset management business in the former Soviet Union, and make profits underwritten by the US Government with information supplied from their US Government positions or contacts," Helmer wrote. "It is exceptional for them to fall out over the loot."
Earlier this month, when I contacted George Pazuniak, Figlus's lawyer, about Jaresko's aggressive enforcement of the non-disclosure agreement, he told me that "at this point, it's very difficult for me to say very much without having a detrimental effect on my client." Pazuniak did say, however, that all the redactions were demanded by Jaresko's lawyers.
Unresponsive Response
I also sent detailed questions to U.S. AID and to Jaresko via several of her associates. Those questions included how much of the $150 million in U.S. taxpayers' money remained, why Jaresko reported no compensation from "related organizations," whether she received any of the $4.6 million to WNISEF's officers in bonuses in 2013, how much money she made in total from her association with WNISEF, what AID officials did in response Figlus's complaint about possible wrongdoing, and whether Jaresko's legal campaign to silence her ex-husband was appropriate given her current position and Ukraine's history of secretive financial dealings.
U.S. AID press officer Annette Y. Aulton got back to me with a response that was unresponsive to my specific questions. Rather than answering about the performance of WNISEF and Jaresko's compensation, the response commented on the relative success of 10 "Enterprise Funds" that AID has sponsored in Eastern Europe and added:
"There is a twenty year history of oversight of WNISEF operations. Enterprise funds must undergo an annual independent financial audit, submit annual reports to USAID and the IRS, and USAID staff conduct field visits and semi-annual reviews. At the time Horizon Capital assumed management of WNISEF, USAID received disclosures from Natalie Jaresko regarding the change in management structure and at the time USAID found no impropriety during its review."
One Jaresko associate, Tanya Bega, Horizon Capital's investor relations manager, said she forwarded my questions to Jaresko last week, but Jaresko did not respond.
Further showing how much Jaresko's network is penetrating the new Ukrainian government, another associate, Estonian Jaanika Merilo, has been brought on to handle Ukraine's foreign investments. Merilo's Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), which is committed to "representing interests of private equity investors to policymakers and improving the investment and business climate in Ukraine," included Jaresko's Horizon Capital as a founder.
In a way, given Jaresko's background of parlaying U.S. taxpayer's money into various insider investment deals, perhaps she does have the experience to handle the incoming $17.5 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund.
But the question remains whether Jaresko's is the right kind of experience - and whether the money will go to help the impoverished people of Ukraine or simply wind up lining the pockets of the well-heeled and the well-connected.
"http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=46d_1424968542TruelUkraine Finance Minister, Known for Shady <span class="highlight">Dealings</span>, Shares Her &quot;American Values&quot; with KievUS puppets in Ukraine. Boris Nemtsov Murder Is the Next MH17Mon, 02 Mar 2015 13:23:12 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=630_1425320145
pest-control&gt;&gt;
Whatever the facts of the case the west is going to squeeze out every last anti-Kremlin soundbite out of it that it can
The murder of Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov is the latest in a series of dramas involving Russia played out on the international stage. A Putin adversary, murdered with the backdrop of St. Basils, this is the stuff of Hollywood, literally.
Whoever killed Nemtsov, he or she will go down in history right along with those responsible for Malaysian flight MH17. Of this, I think we can all rest assured. Like the catastrophe that was to be Sochi 2014, in the same way a million Russian tanks have been sent to Donbass to fight Kiev's forces, so too a midnight killer has unleashed a New York City to Sydney media frenzy. And this is how we can know who was responsible too. BBC seems all too ready to count the convenient thousands marching along the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. Wall Street has chime in with a well prepared headline that reads; "Boris Nemtsov's Career Traces Arc of Russia's Dimmed Hopes for Democracy."
Once again, in a year of never ending provocative news, we're presented with astounding coincidence. And for the intelligent among us, this is how we can know the "direction" of the truth. Wasn't it Friedrich Nietzsche who once said;
"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
We're trapped inside daytime TV! The world is being sold soap powder to wash out the brain. News has become an opera of policy, an Orwellian talk show, a tabloid rumor to satiate the strung out news junkies. Suddenly a one of Putin's most vehement critics, he's been elevated to Gandhi status because of his untimely death. In the same way the Je Suis Charlie cartoonists magically morphed into epic heroes, somebody clearly wants a Russian paradigm. Like I said, the suggestion Putin had this done is not just idiotic, it's insane. If he's as powerful and evil as Washington officials claim, then assassinating dissidents across the street from Putin's office seems... Well, anyone with enough money could have had Nemtzov disappear forever, let's face it. This leaves only three possibilities as to who is behind his murder.
Murder Suspects By Multiple Choice
In the BBC or Wall Street Journal narrative, I guess we can think of Vladimir Putin like the Godfather form the famous movie. He had to make a public statement, you see? Nemtsov was such a fearsome foe, a gangland killing in front of the "Don's" house was deemed necessary. This is the soap opera version, the one intended to perpetuate the Evil Putin doctrine of Washington and London. This is the "NATO protects us!" version.
The second version of this story involves the 142.5 million enemies Nemtsov and his fellow dissidents have made swimming against the current in Russia. I'm being generous giving the slain "agent" of change a million supporters our of the Russian population, Putin is that popular in Mother Russia, no one can deny. In this version some sub-group or unknown Nemtsov enemy from his past dealings sought revenge in the shadow of the Kremlin.
A third version of this cloak and dagger slaying involves the same people who own 90 percent of western mainstream media. The name of Nemtsov's killers in this version could be an acronym, we know so many. The CIA, or maybe even Ukraine's SBU equivalent could be responsible. Maybe the assailant was MI6? Could James Bond himself have sped away from the scene of Boris Nemtsov's slaying? Let's face it though, the killers did not have to be Israeli Mossad to get this job done for the Putin. What if a contract killer was hired, by perhaps some seen or unseen oligarch? The point is, we're left wondering except for two critical points. Who had the most to gain, and who is making the biggest noise over the event? I think almost all Russians get this point, and I pray most people who can read elsewhere do.
Stay Tuned Following These Advertisements
In summary, we're continually left with an absence of evidence from leadership, and the media these days. The only fact the public really has to rely on, it seems, is the weight and unreason of the anti-Russia story. Logic, Murphy's law, common sense tells us that something is wrong in all this. The Nemtsov killing, like the hundreds of others we've heard, it should set off all our alarms. Just before posting this I searched Google News for the biggest headline in the last hour. If my theory of reason is correct, the institution mentioned in a Voice of America story bears deep scrutiny, and I quote:
"U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called for a thorough and transparent investigation into the murder of Russian opposition politician and activist Boris Nemtsov. Former Russian chess champion and rights activist Garry Kasparov says he is shattered by the news and says it comes amid an atmosphere of propaganda and hatred aimed at opponents of President Vladimir Putin."
Is it desperation to pull chess champions out of the closet? What if Russia called for an investigation into the JFK assassination? We are definitely in an "Oh boy!" sitcom these days. The only thing that is crystal clear is, whoever is behind all this drama will stop at nothing. And this is scary stuff indeed.http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=630_1425320145pest-controlBoris Nemtsov Murder Is the Next MH17I Bet Western MSM Payed The Killer Out Of Boredom, LOLPart 2: Stunning revelations from former Turkish Intelligence Agency officerSun, 01 Mar 2015 13:53:04 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dbe_1425235767
DonetskMediaCenterDMCpart 2 of the series: exposing the 2011 "Syrian" "revolution" and its facilitators. A Turkish defector speaks out.
Sentenced to a 20 year prison term for handing mass murderer Lt.
Col. Hussein al-Harmoush back to Syria, Turkish Intelligence Agency MIT
veteran "Onder Sigircikoglu escaped prison and fled from Turkey. This is Part 2 of the interview he gave to "Omer "Odemis for leading Turkish news site OdaTV .
Murderers were transported by official vehicles
From March to August 2011 "Onder Sigircikoglu interviewed over 4
thousand Syrians, drawing up fact sheets on each for his agency. He was
tasked with keeping regular contact especially with the renegade
military residents of the camps set up in Hatay. However the officer
corps that was being put together included pretenders as well.
"Mustafa Kassoum whom I seized together with Harmoush was not of
military origin. But he was adept at feeding a stream of lies and
fantasies to international backers to collect money," says Sigircikoglu.
"An instructor in Syria in his earlier life, Kassoum became a leader of
some significance in the course of the revolts and played an outsized
part in the chaos that gripped the country. We suspected he was
connected to certain Arab intelligence agencies all along. We also knew
that he was pocketing the donations he collected on behalf of the
militants."
INCURSIONS INTO SYRIA CONTROLLED BY MIT'S ADANA OFFICE
Sigircikoglu explains that all incursions of jihadi murderers from
Turkey to Syrian territory was organized by the Adana regional office of
MIT. "The office was given advanced notice on groups preparing for a
raid. Once the order came down, agency workers were assigned to
facilitate the passage in utmost secrecy. I gather Hatay office has been
boosted recently to take on most of these dealings. We usually borrowed
non-military official vehicles. Most of the time we got the vehicles
from AFAD - the Disaster and Emergency Management Department. When we
were short of official cars we rented some, again in AFAD's name. Great
care was taken to avoid a military display and to put a civilian face on
all this activity."
ABANDONED FACILITIES USED FOR LOGISTICS
The outskirts of Reyhanli town is dotted with scores of abandoned
buildings and facilities almost all of which are used as logistic
centers for militants' supplies, says Sigircikoglu. "The old Monopoly
Administration warehouse within Reyhanli proper also serves the same
purpose," he notes. "Supplies brought over from other regions were
collected in these centers until they were transferred to final
destinations over Reyhanli, Yayladag or Kilis borders. Again, the
military nature of the shipments were carefully kept under cover."
HATAY TEEMING WITH SPOOKS
It's no wonder that the region has become a magnet for intelligence
operatives from all over the world. "American, British, Jordanian,
Saudi, you name it," says Sigircikoglu. "Hatay is teeming with spooks
from all of them. In fact we determined that Turkish journalist and
academician Mehmet Y. who made regular trips in and out of Syria was
working for German intelligence. Hatay became the spook capital of the
world. Every intelligence agency you could think of opened up shop in
Hatay. Some are involved in public relations while others work to shape
events, contacting and trying to steer various terror groups to their
own purposes. Many of these are based in Kusakli village which has
become out of bounds for civilians."
WEAPONS FROM ALBANIA AND FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Weapons were primarily brought in by ship. Sigircikoglu remembers
seeing a lot of armament that had previously been used in Libya. "There
appeared to be a preference for brands from non-EU countries. Weapons of
Albanian or former Yugoslavian origin were brought in, for example, and
were dealt out to salafi terror gangs." Indeed, I personally saw
reports that mentioned I.K.86 bullets. I.K. is the acronym for
Igman-Konyits, former Yugoslavian weapons and munitions factory in
present-day Bosnia.
"All transportation and transfers were organized by MIT Adana
Regional Directorate, under full knowledge of the then regional director
Nihat B. and his deputy M"ucahittin K. But there have been occasions
when Ankara bypassed the regional directorate and carried out some
operations over one-to-one connections with figures on the ground,"
Sigircikoglu states.
DIRECT PHONE LINES FOR KEY PLAYERS
"Beginning from early August 2011, departmental managers and senior
employees from MIT Strategic Intelligence Department and
Counter-Espionage Department came to Hatay for private meetings with
high level opposition organizers, particularly with the founders and top
names of the Free Syrian Army. Figures they met included Harmoush, Riad
al Asad and Ahmed Hijazi among others. I found out about this from the
grapevine as well as some of their written exchanges. Ankara was now
bypassing us and establishing direct connections. The Ankara team also
gave their contacts special mobile phones so they could communicate over
a hotline. When these guys neglected to check their phones, Ankara
prompted us to go and warn them to respond to the calls."
HEYSEM TOPALCA LONG AN MIT CONTACT
Asked about the notorious Heysem Topalca, Sigircikoglu replies he has
known this criminal for years. "Topalca used to be a cab driver and
smuggler who operated between Turkey and Syria. He had long been an MIT
contact, but not a figure of any significance. My superiors blew him out
of proportion. He was one of the leaders of the Bayir Bucak Turkmen
group, a radical. From what I gather, he has gained more importance
after my time."
PREPARED TO TESTIFY IN INTERNATIONAL COURTS
"Onder Sigircikoglu has no regrets for his daring feat. He insists he
would take the same action today if he was faced with the choice:
"I acted out of conscience... I couldn't be an accomplice to
the massacres... Handing a mass murderer back to his home country is not a
crime in my view. I was betrayed by some of the friends I set out with.
The identities of the secret witnesses are known to me. I was
sentenced, and now I'm a wanted man with a red notice over my head. So
be it. I am prepared to testify in international courts of justice, to
state in full detail everything I did, witnessed, or know about. AKP
government has defied international law to support terror networks
against Syria. I am ready to do anything to expose the malignant support
and to see those responsible pay for their crimes."http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dbe_1425235767DonetskMediaCenterDMCPart 2: Stunning revelations from former Turkish Intelligence Agency officerSyria, FSAm revolution, rebel, SAA, defector, soldier, traitor, jihad, chechen, extremist, Libya, weapon, NATO, KSA, UAE, GCC, NATO, EU, USA, islam, quran, jihad, murder, genocide, Assad UPDATED: Nemtsov wire taps: how to organize Russian Maidan on the phone. Part 1Sun, 01 Mar 2015 09:09:48 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dd5_1425218087
TruelFebruary 28, 2015
Translated by Kristina Rus
Nemtsov's statements are highlighted in bold
Hello!
Hello! Are you coming at 1 o'clock?
Of course, I am trying to dry my hair. While I was washing my hair, I got called five times.
Do you dry your hair in front of the computer?
What would you like?
I want to write in your Live Journal, on Facebook, write about the situation with this place, so this scum will stop to... last night they were having fun all night on Twitter, as you know, right?
Yes, I know, today we will get together at Udaltsov, and at 2 o'clock at Ilya Ponomarev and Udaltsov. We will send someone from Solidarnost, for a press conference at the independent press center. Delyagin wrote that the meeting is coordinated between Solidarnost and the Left front
So they stopped squealing already?
Yes.
Bastards, f%ck. Is the scum Chirikova still barking?
The scum Chirikova continues to bark along with Limonov.
Limonov I don't care about at all. Ok, I am suggesting to write a short post in Live Journal.
Can I tell Misha to write that?
Where is Misha?
He is at the computer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Panyechka!
Borya! Hello dear!
Hi!
Why couldn't you convince Chirikova, a chick! Jesus!
She is f%cked up, how can I convince her?
Yes she is f$cked up, of course
No, she doesn't want to hear anything. Do you understand the point? At least do you understand it?
I read something online...
Those who will come to the Revolution square, for them a passage, a march will be organized to Bolotnaya. They are cretins! They should put up a monument for me instead of Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka! What?
And then steal the archives once again!
You are right, I will steal them...
You are a great Russian writer, can you call Chirikova, and say, Chirikova, b%tch you are insulting Nemtsov, saying he did it for money, did you hear this? This f#cked up b$tch wrote this. Call this rat and tell her to behave!
Who am I for her, of course, I could try
No, she respects you, you are Panechkin, a famous writer, explain the motivation, explain what happened, that I didn't fold, didn't write any letters. You can read in my Live Journal or Facebook, about what happened. They told me the right thing, they said, you cannot fit that many people on that square, and this is true. It's true... And since there will be a lot of people from the office plankton, the internet hamsters, who had never seen a live OMON soldier, I don't want to have any people beaten by bats, that's it!
I agree with you
So call her, and tell her to shut up! When someone is arrested, she calls me, when she wants to go to America, she calls me, when she needs help with customs, she calls me,
when she wants to help some victims, she calls me, when she needs money for anti-Seliger, she calls me, and then Nemtsov is a traitor, f$ck, is she not a scum?
You should loose the tone, Borya
I will loose the tone, I am just talking to you like this
She is is a stupid idiot, everyone understands this
Being angry will not make it better, everyone understands that she is an idiot
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello!
Borya?
Hello!
Who is this?
Yashin
Yashin, f#ck! First of all let me tell you the latest news. First of all we reconciled today with those morons.
Yes, I know, I asked Misha to post your video statement
Yes this is the first good news. Second is not news, but a request. I think Lesha needs to go for president
Who thinks?
I think, me, Nemtsov thinks. But I need for him to mumble something about this.
He is not ready so far
I understand, but, keep in mind, the situation is the following. Vovochka Ryzhkov wants to go for it. I don't like the idea, because it's not feasible, do you understand?
I understand
But he, b$th, will break all of us, because he found the money
You shouldn't present anyone. It will be taken very badly by the people
I understand, but he was given money
This is not about money. No one will support him. He is, softly speaking, not an optimal candidate. If you will announce him as a candidate for president at the meeting, the reaction will be inadequate. Don't do that.
Ilya, I agree, let's talk about the Revolution square. Do you know the story? I think we did everything very f$cken beautiful
Thank God
And there is my part in this, too. Very important that you write a declaration for the meeting, which someone or I may read, that the opposition needs to be united, that our goal is just to deal with them
I wrote the declaration, and gave it to Misha
That it's good that you found a compromise, and is very important, that the authorities should carry responsibility for that chaos they started, but don't write, "Don't go to the Revolution square"
We didn't write this
Someone told me you wrote this, this is wrong.
This is BS. I didn't write this. I wrote... We held consultations all day. As a result I wanted to write a declaration about Bolotnaya, but no one supported me, and we decided to say "Come out and protest" Neutral like that.
No, that's ok, you know, the authorities have contacted me
Borya, we wrote, we need peaceful protests, come out and protest.
That's fine, but don't concentrate on the Revolution square, because most people never went to anywhere
I know. How many people are coming?
36 thousand on Facebook
But what's your assessment? 10 thousand?
F$ck knows. Venedictov is taking a very f$cked up position, runs around...
You have to come to the Revolution square tomorrow, and lead the people from there.
This is what I wanted to do, but I was told that they will arrest me
If you come to the Revolution square?
Yes
Why?
They just called me from Interfax. I didn't get it yet, But the Prosecutor...
You have to go anyway, because if you don't come to the Revolution square you will be eaten alive because Twitter is on fire
Twitter is not on fire any more
No, it's on fire. If you come and say, lead the people to Bolotnaya, why would they arrest you? That's stupid
They don't arrest for something, they arrest on orders
If they arrest you, then fine, it will be the main headline
We are not fighting for headlines
I understand we are not fighting for headlines, but I think if you don't come it will be wrong
No, I will come, you don't have to talk me into it. I already decided
I think it is very important that you come to the Revolution square
I know, I am going to come
Because of what they wrote, I think it will solve that problem
What did they write? I didn't ask anything, I didn't write anything, and I said, please give me a letter, how will you provide security, they gave it to me, the deputy mayor called...
I know
I talked to him today, Nastya is meeting with him right now
I know, tell me the main thing, as far as I understand the only one who separated from you is Limonov, right? Anyone else?
F$ck him
Is there anyone else?
May be the Left Front, but they are not very active
Ilya Yashin
Ilya Yashin is a Russian activist and liberal politician, one of key leaders of political party <<RPR-PARNAS>>, co-founder and one of leaders of political movement Solidarnost. He is also the leader of the Moscow branch of the RPR-PARNAS, in which the Solidarnost participates. In 2005 he was one of founders of civic youth movement Oborona. Active participant of Dissenters' Marches and rallies <<For Fair Elections>>. In 2012 he was elected in Russian Opposition Coordination Council.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello!
Olechka, hi, do you know if we got instructions? Have you seen it?
No, I only saw a text in the news
Because I didn't get it, I am at home, are they going through Interfax?
Yes, probably
Understood. Second, about tomorrow, I will come to the Revolution square, and will ask to go to Bolotnaya queitly. Are you coming with me?
I think I should be on Bolotnaya, an hour early. I am asking, what do you think?
I think the most important thing is to be with me
Ok, I can be with you, but we should do something about the journalists
First of all I already made arrangements with some serious security (Gary's). Second, we will drive up to the Duma, and will come out at Duma and will walk. I will just ask the people to quietly walk to Bolotnaya
Do you know about the talks at the mayor's office? Did they end?
They didn't end. Because if they ended, they would all call me. Were are you, beautiful?
I am home, but I have to go to Kasyanov's, they have a party there
I know I am already here
And I didn't come, I forgot, where is it?
Ok come over, Pirogovka 53 55
I have another question, Devodchenko is in a hospital
Who is the first one after him?
There is an option of Akunin, but the Left front is against him. That's first. Second, what do you think about Alexander Sklar?
Fine, but not the first
And what about Ulitskaya?
Fine, but not the first.
Not the first, of course.
Sure, I don't mind. Just don't change the list too much
Do you know Sklar?
Yes I know, a singer. Has the information field imroved?
Much much improved
They stopped barking, no longer a traitor...
No longer a traitor, did Chirikova apologize?
No
So she thinks it's fine?
No, she is a b$tch or an idiot
I called Oleg Kozyrev, who wrote a horrible post yesterday about a betrayal. I asked him, Oleg, I can understand emotions and negativity, but could you call and ask first before writing?
Did he write a better post today?
Of course, he posted a video message. He said, it was our first reaction. I said you should understand, what happened, and then write
I understand, they are assholes, of course. But it is a waste of time to wait for an apology
It was barbaric
But now they are quiet, they are on our side
Only Chirikova is saying that we will have a march, and that Nemtsov will close the column at Echo Moscow
What an idiot. I said that I will have to be the last one to leave, but I didn't say about the march
Yes, she is an idiot. Ilya Krasilshik called me and asked what's going on? I said, just don't pay attention to Chirikova
She will be arrested tomorrow, and it will be all over
We wouldn't like for her to be arrested
Wouldn't like to, but she is asking for it She wants to be a political prisoner. She is all about PR. She is a total scum, because no one had helped her as much as I had helped her
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello!
Borya, can you answer one question which is killing me?
Sure
I am reading Facebook, Internet, and I see that all the normal people are writing, that if anyone is asking you to come for a march (to walk on the streets, to Lubyanka, to Kremlin), instead of a rally, then these people are provocateurs, right?
Yes
Does it mean I am a provocateur?
Tomorrows rally is very different from all the previous ones. This is for the sissy white collar internet hamsters, who battle on Facebook and VK. I had to represent their interests at the mayor's office. Besides Internet wars, they are extremely scared to get under the bats of Omon. They are extremely scared to be arrested.
What about those ten thousand that gathered on Chistye Prudy, didn't they march to Lubyanka?
The thing is out of those ten thousand that were there, one thousand went to Lubyanka, and they were the activists.
So they knew what they going for?
Yes. It was us, Solidarnost, Left Front, Natsbol of Limonov, There were no hamsters there, the hamsters ran away. About 1000 people went to Lubyanka, so 10% of the rally were the people who were politically motivated and 90% of the meeting were the vegetables who are outraged that they coudn't get laid.
So it is good that Yashin is in jail, and is not coming to Bolotnaya?
Well I wouldn't say that about my friend
But it would be more quiet
Of course I wouldn't do that. That he and Navalny are in jail means that.. And then there that scum Limonov, a provocateur, who along with Zakhar Prilepin want to declare a day of revolution.
But because there will be the scared penguins on the square, I think we should do everything so that they are not touched, otherwise they will turn away from us and say we used them as cannon fodder
This is the task of the Kremlin is to provoke them
Of course that's what they want
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 2 coming soon
http://fortruss.blogspot.no/2015/02/nemtsov-wire-taps-how-to-organize.html
Boris Nemtsov getting instructions at the American embassy in Moscow (video)January 17, 2015, Moscow, USA Embassy
Evgeniya, why did you come to the American Embassy?
Boris Efimovich, hello, could you tell us why did you come to the American embassy?
Nemtsov: To visit the ambassador
Why, do you want to ask him some questions?
Nemtsov: Yes, how did he become an ambassador
Hello, can we ask some questions?
Could you tell us, why did you come to the American Embassy?
By invitation
By whose invitation?
And who are you?
We are from the NTV channel
Why did you come here?
Is this questioning?
After the instructions, one hour later:
You are Surkov's propaganda
You are Surkov's propaganda
You are Surkov's propaganda
Kristina Rus:
Among the visitors: Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Ponomarev, Chirikova
Do you really want to know what Russians think about such opposition activists as Nemtsov? Yandex translate the comments under this video. In short it will sound like "prostitutes, traitors etc."
America has done more to marginalize Russian opposition then Putin could ever dream of.
"
http://fortruss.blogspot.no/2015/03/boris-nemtsov-getting-instructions-at.html
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk"
Video recording of Nemtsov's murder released
The TVTs TV channel published surveillance camera video which captured the moment of Nemtsov's murder in the center of Moscow. One can see the car and the silhouettes of people.
We can see how Boris Nemtsov and Anna Duritskaya are walking on the bridge toward the Bolotnaya square. They are overtaken and obscured by a snow clearance vehicle with flashing lights. A second later another man runs out from behind the vehicle, gets into a car and leaves.
The snow clearance vehicle stops several meters from the location of the crime. Only one silhouette remains, apparently Nemtsov's acquaintance. Then she walks up to the drivers, and spends several minutes behind the snow clearing vehicle.
At the same time other pedestrians walk on the bridge. They walk past as if nothing had happened, while others stop briefly out of interest. One individual inspects the place of Nemtsov's death, then runs up to the snow clearing machine, next to which is the girl, then returns to the body. At 23:35 the first vehicle stopped here, and left several seconds later. The girl returned to the place of the crime, then two other individuals walked up to it. At 23:37 another vehicle drives by, abruptly stops, and drives in reverse to the site of the crime. It remains next to the crime scene for some time.
Police arrive at the crime scene at 23:42. We can see two individuals running away from under the bridge.
Investigators are considering all possible versions of Nemtsov's murder. However, Rossiyskaya Gazeta sources in the law enforcement say that they are most interested in the scenario in which Nemtsov was killed for personal reasons. In spite of the fact that Nemtsov was fired at no less than six times, not a single bullet struck his companion Anna Duritskaya.
J.Hawk's Comment: That is by far the most plausible explanation of Nemtsov's death. He was mixed up in all manner of shady, immoral, and possibly even illegal interpersonal and financial dealings. He had plenty of opportunity to make enemies for himself, and did not get along especially well with most of the so-called "Russian opposition." Once again, the fact he was shot at 6-8 times at point blank range, out of which only 4 shots hit, and moreover that his companion who was in perfect position to see who was shooting at Nemtsov was left alive and unharmed on the scene, suggests a personal animosity toward Nemtsov somehow related to this "relationship" (for lack of a better word--somehow I doubt the 55-year-old Nemtsov was going to marry the 23-year-old "actress-model) on the part of the shooter.
That the US government ordered or inspired the killing is implausible in the extreme. The fact that the USG will use this killing to political advantage certainly suggests cynical opportunism, but nothing more.
It is equally extremely implausible the killer was ordered or inspired by anyone within the Russian government.
For the sake of completeness, a third set of implausible theories (though here the motive is actually pretty evident) posits that Nemtsov was killed by someone within Russia's "war party" (whose representative or maybe even leader is none other than...Strelkov/Girkin) in order to provoke a harsh Western reaction that would in turn force the Russian government to adopt a harder line toward the West.
Still, in the end one has to keep in mind that the vast majority of "contract killings" in Russia have to do not with politics but with dirty financial dealings and/or the underworld. The alternative Anna Duritskaya angle is not that Nemtsov was shot by a jealous lover, but by Duritskaya's pimp.
http://fortruss.blogspot.no/2015/02/video-recording-of-nemtsovs-murder.htmlhttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dd5_1425218087Truel UPDATED: Nemtsov wire taps: how to organize Russian Maidan on the phone. Part 1Russia. US NGO. Nemtsov. Sri Lanka ignores UN punishment Sending home another 3000 MALE Pakistanis back to Pakistan . Get Punished by EU sanctionsThu, 26 Feb 2015 18:43:19 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c4c_1424993156
ColomboSerbSrI Lanka after the war has tried to make money on the lucrative refugee business where the countries that is not in Europe get paid big amount per person by the UN to take some of the refugees that otherwise would have gone to Europe . Unfortanly after just 8 month of pakistani quests last year Sri Lanka government said openly its not possible to integrate the pakistani muslim people to the a non islamic culture . Even do the muslims mainly stayed in a Muslim and Christian town called Negombo on the west cost. Reputation to be openly with all the religions and a lot of foreigners. Even do the each pakistani male over 18 got 800 USD per month in pocket money to spend for there stay .Cases of rape, crime, and drug dealings, pimping was sky rocking. The boiling point for the government officials was when a drugged pakistani man did jerking off in public in front of a buddhist preteen girl school. On top of all other crimes.
So in November 2014 the government just rented 100 Busses and forced the 3000 male refugees to go to the airport with our without there clothes during night hours and fly back to pakistan . UN and EU now have put Sri Lanka on sanctions , Lose of 2 billion USD of fish export ban to EU and more punishment for not been able to take care of the pakistani muslim immigration
Police respons
A anonymus police officers said : It was a mess with sexual harassment and rape cases, they did not have a job they made a local yearly salary every month just to be here and they did not respected the local people or there culture. Some extreme part of the pakistani refugees initially on arrival tried to make pork shops close to there housings that sold pork or liquor to close.
Goverment respons
A anonymus government spokesman said that its a plan by the leaders of the world to infiltrate non muslim countries with so called refugees people that can't accept non muslim societies and also develop jihadism and islamic terror in nations. .And we tested it but said thanks but no thanks and get punished and now our 400 000 people living on fishing export business will suffer for this.
Source : Aljazeera - Sending home of 3000 male pakistani refugees.
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2014/08/sri-lanka-deports-members-ahmadi-community-201481116572662203.html
Source : The times.co.uk - EU Sanctions against Sri Lanka
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article4279298.ecehttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c4c_1424993156ColomboSerbSri Lanka ignores UN punishment Sending home another 3000 MALE Pakistanis back to Pakistan . Get Punished by EU sanctionspakistani, refugees, asia, sri lanka, islamEuropean Killers Enjoy Fascist <<Safari>> in UkraineWed, 25 Feb 2015 00:52:39 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2c5_1424840261
LetitoThe self-defense forces of the Donetsk People's Republic reported the elimination of two enemy's block posts in the area of Donetsk in the first half of July. According to their Minister of Defense Igor Strelkov, one of them was defended by people in NATO combat fatigue who were foreign passport holders.
It's not only the hired personnel of Western private military contractors who do their job by killing for money. There are also people who go to Ukraine to get pleasure and are ready to pay for it.
Stan Patton, soldier of fortune, Blackwater, shares a quotation in his Twitter saying what the prices are: a shot of howitzers - $ 100 from the tank - $ 200, a shot in the village is priced at U.S. $ 350...
The Kiev regime converts the battle area into an entertainment place - firing range for blood thirsty foreign tourists, the government is even involved in advertising business. The clients don't hide their passion for this kind of fun and even show it off. Here are some of the. Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years' experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (lb4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head. Don. Francesco Fontana - one of several hundred Western adventurers who flew to Ukraine and said in his video that he always dreamed to have a chance to kill people without responsibility.
Italian IL Giornale correspondent Fausto Biloslavo writes that foreigners are welcome to join the battalion of Azov established by Ukrainian homosexual MP Oleg Lyashko. There are volunteers from Italy, Sweden. Finland, Norway, France and Baltic States. International rabble gets on Ukraine thanks to the skillful recruiter - 46-year-old Frenchman Gaston Besson. He advertises on the Internet with an offer to take part in the bloody <<safari>> in Ukraine. <<We invite you to join a battalion of Azov. No payment. We are ready to meet you in Kiev. From you I need information about your family and social situation. Let us know if you are ready to participate in the battles themselves, or will train young soldiers. Upon arrival in Kiev, you will get the contact number of our English-speaking employee. Sleeping, eating, and so on - on our base in the south-east>>, - said the ad. A native of Mexico, he served in the French commando and special forces in Southeast Asia. Member of three coups and two wars. Laos, Burma, Suriname... In 1991, the same mercenary killed Serbs in Croatia, then - in Bosnia.
<<People come from many different countries. Finland, Norway, Sweden, England, France, Italy... We do not take the fanatics and extremists. We need people with military experience, professionals. We are not for NATO or for the European Union; we have no interest in politics. Every day I get about 15 letters from those who want to come to Ukraine to fight. We all understand that there is a war, and every day you can be hurt or killed>>, - says Gaston Besson.
The U.S. attracts these masters of dirty work to all the hot spots - Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The presence of American advisers in Ukraine is accompanied by the appearance of foreign mercenaries and the south-east part of the country.
Gaston says he is not a mercenary, or even a secret agent. He is not hiding. He sees himself as a revolutionary and an idealist having gone through two war and the uprisings in Croatia, Bosnia, Burma, Laos and Surinam. It's his experience in former Yugoslavia that is important. It gives clue to what is done and why in Ukraine. Twenty years ago Yugoslavia was partitioned.
Back then, the Sunday Mirror did the same thing its Italian colleagues do today. Some advertisements of a tourist company were published and repeated in neo-fascist outlets and Internet. The hunting tours were arranged by British mercenaries with combat experience in Croatia. They were reported to launch branches in Munich and Zagreb and the business was flourishing.
Europeans were offered to hunt civilians in Serbian Krajina and Croatia. The price was $3000 (1995). Hunters were offered bullet-proof jackets, ammunition and rifles with optical guidance. Hunters - <<international brigades of Croatian army>> guaranteed security. Rape and plundering were offered for special pay. The clients were mainly ethnic Croats from Australia, Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Austria, as well as European felons and Neo-Nazi. Gaston Besson started his business and combat experience there to continue to do what he likes most in Ukraine now.
What do these war dogs need? The Croatian army and the Ukrainian military don't put them on the payroll. But in Croatia the <<international brigades warriors>> got booty making many of them rich in no time. In 1994 the war was raging. German police was involved in investigations trying to find out how come this had nothings before the war all of a sudden started to buy land, equity, establish companies employing European neo-fascists. It was an open secret: plundering and arms trade and drug dealings.
What did Croats need mercenaries for? They almost made no contribution as fighters. They were needed for the very same thing the Ukrainian regime needs them now. Hunting and shooting does bring in certain profit. But it's not the main thing. They protect the officials from accusations of being involved in genocide. The government can say the regular armed forces are not involved in plundering and expulsions. 20 years ago European politicians approached Former Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Grani'c with demands to stop ethnic cleansing and providing the people with opportunity to get back home. Back then he smiled and said that the responsibility lied with <<private>> people from Europe who were not members of regular military.
http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/07/23/european-killers-enjoy-fascist-safari-in-ukraine.html
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1790249#http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2c5_1424840261LetitoEuropean Killers Enjoy Fascist <<Safari>> in UkraineUkraine,Hunting,Safari,Human Safari,Ukrainian Safari,AzovThere's a massive new leak of confidential spy files from MI6, Mossad and the FSBMon, 23 Feb 2015 12:52:45 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=41f_1424713488
shizzlemynizzleAl-Jazeera has obtained hundreds of confidential "spy cables" from some of the world's top intelligence agencies, in what the news channel is calling "the largest intelligence leak since Snowden."
Documents from Britain's MI6 and Israel's Mossad are included, along with the Russian FSB, South African SSA and the Australian ASIO. (No American intelligence agencies appear to be included.) Al-Jazeera is publishing the leaks over the coming days in conjunction with the Guardian, promising that they will provide "an unprecedented insight into operational dealings of the shadowy and highly politicised realm of global espionage."
The documents date from 2006 to December 2014. They will be redacted before publication and their full contents are not yet known, but reportedly include:
Israel's "true" assessment of Iran's nuclear capabilities.
An MI6 operation to recruit a North Korean spy.
"An assassination plot targeting an African union leader."
The source for the documents appears to be a leak in South Africa's SSA agency, including "detailed briefings and internal analyses written by operatives of South Africa's State Security Agency (SSA)", as well as "secret correspondence with the US intelligence agency, the CIA, Britain's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Russia's FSB and Iran's operatives, as well as dozens of other services from Asia to the Middle East and Africa."
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/al-jazeera-spy-files-mi6-mossad-fsb-2015-2
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/spy-cables-world-espionage-snowden-guardian-mi6-cia-ssa-mossad-iran-southafrica-leak-150218100147229.htmlhttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=41f_1424713488shizzlemynizzleThere's a massive new leak of confidential spy files from MI6, Mossad and the FSBmi6, mossad, fsb, isreal, britain, russia, leak, leaks, cables, new, uk, spyingGreece readies reform list for lenders ahead of Monday deadlineSun, 22 Feb 2015 04:30:23 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b66_1424597418
EuronewsThe pressure is on Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
To be sure he has saved his country from bankruptcy, for the next four months at least, his leftist-led government has until Monday to submit a list of reforms acceptable to international creditors.
With the cabinet now briefed on Friday's loan lifeline in Brussels, the
message is that the list will be handed in early and should get the green light.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said:
"It will be submitted in good time for them to have as much time as possible in order to assess it and we are pretty confident, actually we are very confident, that the list is going to be approved by the institutions and therefore we are embarking upon a new phase of stabilisation and growth."
Varoufakis did not use the word "troika" but news of further dealings with the European and IMF creditors monitoring Greece's compliance with austerity pledges is not to everyone's taste in the country.
"We went through two months of agony, emptied the banks, to realise we are still a debt colony," 54-year-old electrician Dimitris Kanakis told Reuters. "The paymasters call the shots."
But Tsipras and his Syriza party, elected last month on promises to end Greece's EU/IMF bailout programme, reject critics' claims of a climbdown.
The government insists the country is now shaping its own destiny rather than having reforms imposed from abroad.http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b66_1424597418EuronewsGreece readies reform list for lenders ahead of Monday deadlineEuronewsHow Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:12 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a46_1424465123
104JebackaBrigadaRumours
of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have
circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of
events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act
are still being felt by today's president
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a
director and shareholder of companies that profited from their
involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in
the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a
director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets
were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more
than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes
prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been
grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the
surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about
the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the
new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that
even after America had entered the war and when there was already
significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked
for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German
businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been
suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish
the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.
Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received
public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the
documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal
action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family,
and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are
threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable
issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.
While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to
the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown
Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German
industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s
before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has
seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based
Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests
and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.
Tantalising
Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that
formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow
Thyssen to move assets around the world.
Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew
rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of
the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked
exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the
Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated
Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the
German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave
labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership
of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from
the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC,
although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the
company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.
Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All
three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system
and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in
Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.
The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of
Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a
number of companies involved with Thyssen.
The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are
contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the
company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the
alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott
Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further
seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading
Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November,
the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had
also been seized.
The third set of documents, also at the National Archives, are
contained in the files on IG Farben, who was prosecuted for war crimes.
A report issued by the Office of Alien Property Custodian in 1942
stated of the companies that "since 1939, these (steel and mining)
properties have been in possession of and have been operated by the
German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance
to that country's war effort".
Prescott Bush, a 6ft 4in charmer with a rich singing voice, was the
founder of the Bush political dynasty and was once considered a
potential presidential candidate himself. Like his son, George, and
grandson, George W, he went to Yale where he was, again like his
descendants, a member of the secretive and influential Skull and Bones
student society. He was an artillery captain in the first world war and
married Dorothy Walker, the daughter of George Herbert Walker, in 1921.
In 1924, his father-in-law, a well-known St Louis investment banker,
helped set him up in business in New York with Averill Harriman, the
wealthy son of railroad magnate E H Harriman in New York, who had gone
into banking.
One of the first jobs Walker gave Bush was to manage UBC. Bush was a
founding member of the bank and the incorporation documents, which list
him as one of seven directors, show he owned one share in UBC worth
$125.
The bank was set up by Harriman and Bush's father-in-law to provide a
US bank for the Thyssens, Germany's most powerful industrial family.
August Thyssen, the founder of the dynasty had been a major
contributor to Germany's first world war effort and in the 1920s, he and
his sons Fritz and Heinrich established a network of overseas banks and
companies so their assets and money could be whisked offshore if
threatened again.
By the time Fritz Thyssen inherited the business empire in 1926, Germany's economic recovery was faltering. After hearing Adolf Hitler
speak, Thyssen became mesmerised by the young firebrand. He joined the
Nazi party in December 1931 and admits backing Hitler in his
autobiography, I Paid Hitler, when the National Socialists were still a
radical fringe party. He stepped in several times to bail out the
struggling party: in 1928 Thyssen had bought the Barlow Palace on
Briennerstrasse, in Munich, which Hitler converted into the Brown House,
the headquarters of the Nazi party. The money came from another Thyssen
overseas institution, the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvarrt in Rotterdam.
By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the
world's largest private investment bank, and UBC had bought and shipped
millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to
Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.
Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of
which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the
Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and
between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to
$1m only on a few occasions.
In 1941, Thyssen fled Germany after falling out with Hitler but he
was captured in France and detained for the remainder of the war.
There was nothing illegal in doing business with the Thyssens
throughout the 1930s and many of America's best-known business names
invested heavily in the German economic recovery. However, everything
changed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Even then it could be
argued that BBH was within its rights continuing business relations with
the Thyssens until the end of 1941 as the US was still technically
neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The trouble started on July 30
1942 when the New York Herald-Tribune ran an article entitled "Hitler's
Angel Has $3m in US Bank". UBC's huge gold purchases had raised
suspicions that the bank was in fact a "secret nest egg" hidden in New
York for Thyssen and other Nazi bigwigs. The Alien Property Commission
(APC) launched an investigation.
There is no dispute over the fact that the US government seized a
string of assets controlled by BBH - including UBC and SAC - in the
autumn of 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act. What is in dispute
is if Harriman, Walker and Bush did more than own these companies on
paper.
Erwin May, a treasury attache and officer for the department of
investigation in the APC, was assigned to look into UBC's business. The
first fact to emerge was that Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush and the
other directors didn't actually own their shares in UBC but merely held
them on behalf of Bank voor Handel. Strangely, no one seemed to know who
owned the Rotterdam-based bank, including UBC's president.
May wrote in his report of August 16 1941: "Union Banking
Corporation, incorporated August 4 1924, is wholly owned by the Bank
voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My
investigation has produced no evidence as to the ownership of the Dutch
bank. Mr Cornelis Lievense, president of UBC, claims no knowledge
as to the ownership of the Bank voor Handel but believes it possible
that Baron Heinrich Thyssen, brother of Fritz Thyssen, may own a
substantial interest."
May cleared the bank of holding a golden nest egg for the Nazi
leaders but went on to describe a network of companies spreading out
from UBC across Europe , America and Canada, and how money from voor Handel travelled to these companies through UBC.
By September May had traced the origins of the non-American board
members and found that Dutchman HJ Kouwenhoven - who met with Harriman
in 1924 to set up UBC - had several other jobs: in addition to being the
managing director of voor Handel he was also the director of the August
Thyssen bank in Berlin and a director of Fritz Thyssen's Union Steel
Works, the holding company that controlled Thyssen's steel and coal mine
empire in Germany.
Within a few weeks, Homer Jones, the chief of the APC investigation
and research division sent a memo to the executive committee of APC
recommending the US government vest UBC and its assets. Jones named the
directors of the bank in the memo, including Prescott Bush's name, and
wrote: "Said stock is held by the above named individuals, however,
solely as nominees for the Bank voor Handel, Rotterdam, Holland, which
is owned by one or more of the Thyssen family, nationals of Germany and
Hungary. The 4,000 shares hereinbefore set out are therefore
beneficially owned and help for the interests of enemy nationals, and
are vestible by the APC," according to the memo from the National
Archives seen by the Guardian.
Red-handed
Jones recommended that the assets be liquidated for the benefit of
the government, but instead UBC was maintained intact and eventually
returned to the American shareholders after the war. Some claim that
Bush sold his share in UBC after the war for $1.5m - a huge amount of
money at the time - but there is no documentary evidence to support this
claim. No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation
continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a
American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America
had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed
Hitler's rise to power.
The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery:
the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated
Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.
Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and
steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel
magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical
company.
Flick's plants in Poland made heavy use of slave labour from the
concentration camps in Poland. According to a New York Times article
published in March 18 1934 Flick owned two-thirds of CSSC while
"American interests" held the rest.
The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with
CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's
friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH,
wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC
after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the plant. "The
Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly
complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in
order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight.
"After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man
in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the
directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director
and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability
attaching to the American directors."
But the ownership of the CSSC between 1939 when the Germans invaded
Poland and 1942 when the US government vested UBC and SAC is not clear.
"SAC held coal mines and definitely owned CSSC between 1934 and 1935,
but when SAC was vested there was no trace of CSSC. All concrete
evidence of its ownership disappears after 1935 and there are only a few
traces in 1938 and 1939," says Eva Schweitzer, the journalist and
author whose book, America and the Holocaust, is published next month.
Silesia was quickly made part of the German Reich after the invasion,
but while Polish factories were seized by the Nazis, those belonging to
the still neutral Americans (and some other nationals) were treated
more carefully as Hitler was still hoping to persuade the US to at least
sit out the war as a neutral country. Schweitzer says American
interests were dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis bought some
out, but not others.
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush
family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially
benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war.
Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class
action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary
Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under
the principle of "state sovereignty".
Jan Lissmann, one of the lawyers for the survivors, said: "President
Bush withdrew President Bill Clinton's signature from the treaty not only to protect Americans, but also to protect
himself and his family."
Lissmann argues that genocide-related cases are covered by
international law, which does hold governments accountable for their
actions. He claims the ruling was invalid as no hearing took place.
In their claims, Mr Goldstein and Mr Gingold, honorary chairman of
the League of Anti-fascists, suggest the Americans were aware of what
was happening at Auschwitz and should have bombed the camp.
The lawyers also filed a motion in The Hague asking for an opinion on
whether state sovereignty is a valid reason for refusing to hear their
case. A ruling is expected within a month.
The petition to The Hague states: "From April 1944 on, the American
Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the
railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder
of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented."
The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by
President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all
measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was
ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American
companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.
Lissmann said: "If we have a positive ruling from the court it will
cause Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to
pay compensation."
The US government and the Bush family deny all the claims against them.
In addition to Eva Schweitzer's book, two other books are about to be
published that raise the subject of Prescott Bush's business history.
The author of the second book, to be published next year, John Loftus,
is a former US attorney who prosecuted Nazi war criminals in the 70s.
Now living in St Petersburg, Florida and earning his living as a
security commentator for Fox News and ABC radio, Loftus is working on a
novel which uses some of the material he has uncovered on Bush. Loftus
stressed that what Prescott Bush was involved in was just what many
other American and British businessmen were doing at the time.
"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you
can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks -
but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so
successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us
today?" he said.
"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power,
this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defence industry was
re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated
back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which
investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were
blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in
St Petersburg.
"The Union Banking Corporation was a holding company for the Nazis,
for Fritz Thyssen," said Loftus. "At various times, the Bush family has
tried to spin it, saying they were owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't
until the Nazis took over Holland that they realised that now the Nazis
controlled the apparent company and that is why the Bush supporters
claim when the war was over they got their money back. Both the American
treasury investigations and the intelligence investigations in Europe
completely bely that, it's absolute horseshit. They always knew who the
ultimate beneficiaries were."
"There is no one left alive who could be prosecuted but they did get
away with it," said Loftus. "As a former federal prosecutor, I would
make a case for Prescott Bush, his father-in-law (George Walker) and
Averill Harriman for giving aid and comfort to the
enemy. They remained on the boards of these companies knowing that they
were of financial benefit to the nation of Germany."
Loftus said Prescott Bush must have been aware of what was happening
in Germany at the time. "My take on him was that he was a not terribly
successful in-law who did what Herbert Walker told him to. Walker and
Harriman were the two evil geniuses, they didn't care about the Nazis
any more than they cared about their investments with the Bolsheviks."
What is also at issue is how much money Bush made from his
involvement. His supporters suggest that he had one token share. Loftus
disputes this, citing sources in "the banking and intelligence
communities" and suggesting that the Bush family, through George Herbert
Walker and Prescott, got $1.5m out of the involvement. There is,
however, no paper trail to this sum.
The third person going into print on the subject is John Buchanan,
54, a Miami-based magazine journalist who started examining the files
while working on a screenplay. Last year, Buchanan published his
findings in the venerable but small-circulation New Hampshire Gazette
under the headline "Documents in National Archives Prove George Bush's
Grandfather Traded With the Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor". He expands
on this in his book to be published next month - Fixing America:
Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media and the Religious
Right.
In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and
music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that
"the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively
obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as
undocumented diatribes".
Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and
when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the
media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and
media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails,
suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the
truth".
Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned.
Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in
connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to
publicise his findings. The charges were dropped last month.
Biography
Buchanan said he regretted his behaviour had damaged his credibility
but his main aim was to secure publicity for the story. Both Loftus and
Schweitzer say Buchanan has come up with previously undisclosed
documentation.
The Bush family have largely responded with no comment to any
reference to Prescott Bush. Brown Brothers Harriman also declined to
comment.
The Bush family recently approved a flattering biography of Prescott
Bush entitled Duty, Honour, Country by Mickey Herskowitz. The
publishers, Rutledge Hill Press, promised the book would "deal honestly
with Prescott Bush's alleged business relationships with Nazi
industrialists and other accusations".
In fact, the allegations are dealt with in less than two pages. The
book refers to the Herald-Tribune story by saying that "a person of less
established ethics would have panicked ... Bush and his partners at
Brown Brothers Harriman informed the government regulators that the
account, opened in the late 1930s, was 'an unpaid courtesy for a client'
... Prescott Bush acted quickly and openly on behalf of the firm,
served well by a reputation that had never been compromised. He made
available all records and all documents. Viewed six decades later in the
era of serial corporate scandals and shattered careers, he received
what can be viewed as the ultimate clean bill."
The Prescott Bush story has been condemned by both conservatives and
some liberals as having nothing to do with the current president. It has
also been suggested that Prescott Bush had little to do with Averill
Harriman and that the two men opposed each other politically.
However, documents from the Harriman papers include a flattering
wartime profile of Harriman in the New York Journal American and next to
it in the files is a letter to the financial editor of that paper from
Prescott Bush congratulating the paper for running the profile. He added
that Harriman's "performance and his whole attitude has been a source
of inspiration and pride to his partners and his friends".
The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush
and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumours
about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have
circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges
are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a
Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser."
However, one of the country's oldest Jewish publications, the Jewish Advocate, has aired the controversy in detail.
More than 60 years after Prescott Bush came briefly under scrutiny at
the time of a faraway war, his grandson is facing a different kind of
scrutiny but one underpinned by the same perception that, for some
people, war can be a profitable businesshttp://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a46_1424465123104JebackaBrigadaHow Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power usa, bush,hitlerBioTech (Monsanto) causing huge fatalities in Indian farmers.Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:14:31 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=688_1424339390
Baron_KazOP's note: Indians have a sense of honor and obligation. A deep underlying code of ethics governs day to day life. Being an Indian American, I grew up in the US land of buy today - pay tomorrow world of credit cards. But my father, a retired Indian Navy officer, was never comfortable with this. "Save today, buy only if you need tomorrow" was more his style. He always seemed mortified by the concept of taking a loan and being indebted to anyone.
I never fully appreciated his way of thinking, but now it gives me an insight in to why Indian farmers commit suicide in such huge numbers when they feel crushed by debts they cannot pay off.
The story is simple: Monsanto the Canadian company working with BioTech and specifically selling genetically modified seeds came to India, bribed the incumbent corrupt Congress politicians in power, and with mass marketing, pressure, price gouging, etc forced farmers to buy their seeds, especially cotton.
The claims were these seeds would produce significantly more amount of yield, and would not need fertilizers or insecticides.
The caveat was: the seeds were the property of Monsanto, so the farmers were not allowed to save some of the seeds for the next crop.
The farmers adopted the seeds, and disaster struck. The crops failed year after year, and they were pushed further and further in to debt to keep buying seeds for the next year's planting. The local breeds of cotton seeds were not stockpiled, and the farmers became dependent on the Monsanto seeds.
Banking system is not well developed in India, let alone in the rural areas. Farmers were pushed in to taking loans for as high as 100% interest in 1 year from loan sharks.
And the crops kept failing.
The farmers started committing suicide.
In the write up below, and in the link included there is a video. In the video, one young farmer decides to break free from the grip of Monsanto and plant traditional seeds in just a tiny part of his fields. In that year, as the rest of his fields, which were planted with Monsanto seeds, yielded NOTHING, and the fields of the farmers in his village (Monsanto seeded) also were barren - the small piece of land wherein he had planted traditional seeds - flourished!
His family finally gave in to his theory, and they abandoned Monsanto seeds and went back to traditional seeds, which were any way better suited for the land and climates of their farms.
The farmers also talk about the old days when co-operative method of sharing between each other, eliminated the need for loan sharks.
At the time of planting if one farmer is short on seeds, he will go to a neighbor and get seeds for free, with the covenant of carrying forward the good deed and helping some one else in need - in the future.
Such altruistic and co-operative methods which ensured the community taking care of itself, failed when Biotech companies like Monsanto stepped in. Monsanto has an iron grip monopoly, which is driving these poor honest people to their deaths!
Yes, there is research which tells Monsanto seeds are not responsible for farmer's suicides.
My back ground is in Medical devices, and what I can say categorically: Research for a concept is ALWAYS paid for by the party most interested in it's findings to justify their claims. All research on tobacco smoking and cancer (in the near past) were paid for by cigarette companies, Microwaves not causing cancer is being paid for by cell phone makers and service providers (in present day).
This is the way it has always worked.
All research data is subject to interpretation.
No research data can ever be considered to be free from bias!
What matters and should be taken in to account: is the voice of the farmers, and perhaps even more: the way they are dying.
These are not African or Arabs who fight amongst each other, and depend on global aid to feed themselves. These are Indians who keep their heads down, work hard and avoid crime. These are people who positively contribute to society, educate their children and grow the next generation of scientists, engineers, doctors and fortune 500 company CEO's.
And this story can find resonance among farmers in many countries, Monsanto is one of the most hated companies in the world, with just enough financial clout to be able to influence governments to turn a blind eye to their shady dealings.
How come Microsoft faced a federal court to reduce it's size and influence, when companies like Amgen, Monsanto etc run completely uninterrupted. Agreed Windows sucks, but it never killed anyone. Monsanto has blood on its hands. It's monopolistic methods have no place in the legal framework of a free capitalist paradigm that is the hallmark of a developed society.
It is up to us people to raise awareness about such an evil entity and expose it's inner workings.
=================
Article today 2/19/2015 about 93 farmers dying in past 45 days in just one region of Maharashtra State in India.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/93-farmers-committed-suicide-in-45-days-in-Marathwada-region/articleshow/46293718.cms
Debt &amp; suicide of farmers:
http://naturalsociety.com/debt-suicide-testimonies-gmo-farmers-india-video/
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvJmcoTjH6s
And some how I have -I (3) status, which does not allow me to link videos from YouTube. I have been a steady and responsible member of this LiveLeak community, with zero infractions. I request this be corrected!!http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=688_1424339390Baron_KazBioTech (Monsanto) causing huge fatalities in Indian farmers.GMO, farmersAssyrian empire, The true ruler of MesopotamiaWed, 18 Feb 2015 07:35:35 -0500http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=81e_1424262589
ReturnofAssyriaAssyria was the region in the Near East which, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire , reached from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) through Asia Minor (modern Turkey ) and down through Egypt . The empire began modestly at the city of Ashur (known as Subartu to the Sumerians ), located in Mesopotamia north-east of Babylon , where merchants who traded in Anatolia became increasingly wealthy, and that affluence allowed for the growth and prosperity of the city. According to one interpretation of passages in the biblical Book of Genesis, Ashur was founded by a man named Ashur son of Shem, son of Noah, after the Great Flood, who then went on to found the other important Assyrian cities . A more likely account is that the city was named Ashur after the deity of that name sometime in the 3rd millennium BCE; the same god's name is the origin for `Assyria'. The biblical version of the origin of Ashur appears later in the historical record after the Assyrians had accepted Christianity , and so it is thought to be a re-interpretation of their early history which was more in keeping with their belief system. The Assyrians were a Semitic people who originally spoke and wrote Akkadian before the easier to use Aramaic language became more popular. Historians have divided the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire into three periods: The Old Kingdom, The Middle Empire, and The Late Empire (also known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire), although it should be noted that Assyrian history continued on past that point, and there are still Assyrians living in the regions of Iran and Iraq, and elsewhere, in the present day. The Assyrian Empire is considered the greatest of the Mesopotamian empires due to its expanse and the development of the bureaucracy and military strategies which allowed it to grow and flourish.
The Old Kingdom Although the city of Ashur existed from the 3rd millennium BCE, the extant ruins of that city date to 1900 BCE which is now considered the date the city was founded. According to early inscriptions, the first king was Tudiya, and those who followed him were known as "kings who lived in tents" suggesting a pastoral, rather than urban, community. Ashur was certainly an important centre of commerce even at this time, however, even though its precise form and structure is unclear. The king
The destruction of the great Assyrian cities was so complete that, within two generations of the empire's fall, no one knew where the cities had been.Erishum I built the temple of Ashur on the site in c. 1900/1905 BCE, and this has come to be the accepted date for the founding of an actual city on the site although, obviously, some form of city must have existed there prior to that date. The historian Wolfram von Soden writes,
Because of a dearth of sources, very little is known of Assyria in the third millennium...Assyria did belong to the Empire of Akkad at times, as well as to the Third Dynasty of Ur . Our main sources for this period are the many thousand Assyrian letters and documents from the trade colonies in Cappadocia, foremost of which was Kanesh (modern Kultepe) (49-50).
The trade colony of Karum Kanesh (the Port of Kanesh) was among the most lucrative centres for trade in the ancient Near East and definitely the most important for the city of Ashur. Merchants from Ashur traveled to Kanesh, set up businesses, and then, after placing trusted employees (usually family members) in charge, returned to Ashur and supervised their business dealings from there. The historian Paul Kriwaczek notes:
For several generations the trading houses of Karum Kanesh flourished, and some became extremely wealthy - ancient millionaires. However not all business was kept within the family. Ashur had a sophisticated banking system and some of the capital that financed the Anatolian trade came from long-term investments made by independent speculators in return for a contractually specified proportion of the profits. There is not much about today's commodity markets that an old Assyrian would not quickly recognize (214-215).
The Rise of Ashur The wealth generated from trade in Karum Kanesh provided the people of Ashur with the stability and security necessary for the expansion of the city and so laid the foundation for the rise of the empire. Trade with Anatolia was equally important in providing the Assyrians with tin from which they were able to perfect the craft of iron working. The iron weapons of the Assyrian military would prove a decisive advantage in the campaigns which would conquer the entire region of the Near East. Before that could happen, however, the political landscape needed to change. The people known as the Hurrians and the Hatti held dominance in the region of Anatolia, and Ashur, to the north in Mesopotamia, remained in the shadow of these more powerful civilizations. In addition to the Hatti, there were the people known as the Amorites who were steadily settling in the area and acquiring more land and resources. The Assyrian king Shamashi Adad I (1813-1791 BCE) drove the Amorites out and secured the borders of Assyria, claiming Ashur as the capital of his kingdom. The Hatti continued to remain dominant in the region until they were invaded and assimilated by the Hittites in c. 1700. Long before that time, however, they ceased to prove as major a concern as the city to the southwest which was slowly gaining power: Babylon. The Amorites were a growing power in Babylon for at least 100 years when the Amorite king named Sin Muballit took the throne, and, in c. 1792 BCE, his son King Hammurabi ascended to rule and subjugated the lands of the Assyrians. It is around this same time that trade between Ashur and Karum Kanesh ended, as Babylon now rose to prominence in the region and took control of trade with Assyria.
King Hammurapi at Worship
Soon after Hammurabi's death in 1750 BCE, the Babylonian Empire fell apart. Assyria again attempted to assert control over the region surrounding Ashur, but it seems as though the kings of this period were not up to the task. Civil war broke out in the region, and stability was not regained until the reign of the Assyrian king Adasi (c. 1726-1691 BCE). Adasi was able to secure the region and his successors continued his policies but were unable or unwilling to engage in expansion of the kingdom.
The Middle Empire The vast Kingdom of Mitanni rose from the area of eastern Anatolia and now held power in the region of Mesopotamia; Assyria fell under their control. Invasions by the Hittites under King Suppiluliuma I broke Mitanni power and replaced the kings of Mitanni with Hittite rulers at the same time that the Assyrian king Eriba Adad I was able to gain influence at the Mitanni (now mainly Hittite) court. The Assyrians now saw an opportunity to assert their own autonomy and began to expand their kingdom outward from Ashur to the regions previously held by the Mitanni. The Hittites struck back and were able to hold the Assyrians at bay until the king Ashur-Uballit I (c.1353-1318 BCE) defeated the remaining Mitanni forces under the Hittite commanders and took significant portions of the region. He was succeeded by two kings who maintained what had been won, but no further expansion was achieved until the coming of King Adad Nirari I (c. 1307-1275 BCE) who expanded the Assyrian Empire to the north and south, driving out the Hittites and conquering their major strongholds. Adad Nirari I is the first Assyrian king about whom anything is known with certainty, because he left inscriptions of his achievements which have survived mostly intact. Further, letters between the Assyrian king and the Hittite rulers have also survived and make it clear that, initially, the Assyrian rulers were not taken seriously by those of other nations in the region until they proved themselves too powerful to resist. The historian Will Durant comments on the rise of the Assyrian Empire writing :
If we should admit the imperial principle - that it is good, for the sake of spreading law, security, commerce and peace, that many states should be brought, by persuasion or force, under the authority of one government - then we should have to concede to Assyria the distinction of having established in western Asia a larger measure and area of order and prosperity than that region of the earth had ever, to our knowledge, enjoyed before (270).
The Assyrian Deportation Policy Adad Nirari I completely conquered the Mitanni and began what would become standard policy under the Assyrian Empire: the deportation of large segments of the population. With Mitanni under Assyrian control, Adad Nirari I decided the best way to prevent any future uprising was to remove the former occupants of the land and replace them with Assyrians. This should not be understood, however, as a cruel treatment of captives. Writing on this, the historian Karen Radner states,
The deportees, their labour and their abilities were extremely valuable to the Assyrian state, and their relocation was carefully planned and organised. We must not imagine treks of destitute fugitives who were easy prey for famine and disease: the deportees were meant to travel as comfortably and safely as possible in order to reach their destination in good physical shape. Whenever deportations are depicted in Assyrian imperial art, men, women and children are shown travelling in groups, often riding on vehicles or animals and never in bonds. There is no reason to doubt these depictions as Assyrian narrative art does not otherwise shy away from the graphic display of extreme violence (1).
Deportees were carefully chosen for their abilities and sent to regions which could make the most of their talents. Not everyone in the conquered populace was chosen for deportation and families were never separated. Those segments of the population that had actively resisted the Assyrians were killed or sold into slavery, but the general populaces became absorbed into the growing empire and were thought of as Assyrians. The historian Gwendolyn Leick writes of Adad Nirari I that, "the prosperity and stability of his reign allowed him to engage in ambitious building projects, building city walls and canals and restoring temples" (3). He also provided a foundation for empire upon which his successors would build.
Assyrian Archers
Assyrian Conquest of Mitanni &amp; the Hittites His son and successor Shalmaneser I completed the destruction of the Mitanni and absorbed their culture. Shalmaneser I continued his father's policies, including the relocation of populations, but his son, Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1244-1208 BCE), went even further. According to Leick, Tukulti-Ninurta I "was one of the most famous Assyrian soldier kings who campaigned incessantly to maintain Assyrian possessions and influence. He reacted with spectacular cruelty to any sign of revolt" (177). He was also very interested in acquiring and preserving the knowledge and cultures of the peoples he conquered and developed a more sophisticated method of choosing which sort of individual, or community, would be relocated and to which specific location. Scribes and scholars, for example, were chosen carefully and sent to urban centers where they could help catalogue written works and help with the bureaucracy of the empire. A literate man, he composed the epic poem chronicling his victory over the Kassite king of Babylon and subjugation of that city and the areas under its influence and wrote another on his victory over the Elamites. He defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya in c. 1245 BCE which effectively ended Hittite power in the region and began the decline of their civilization . When Babylon made incursions into Assyrian territory, Tukulti-Ninurta I punished the city severely by sacking it, plundering the sacred temples, and carrying the king and a portion of the populace back to Assur as slaves. With his plundered wealth, he renovated his grand palace in the city he had built across from Assur, which he named Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, to which he seems to have retreated once the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His desecration of the temples of Babylon was seen as an offense against the gods (as the Assyrians and Babylonians shared many of the same deities) and his sons and court officials rebelled against him for putting his hand on the goods of the gods. He was assassinated in his palace, probably by one of his sons, Ashur-Nadin-Apli, who then took the throne.
Tiglath Pileser I &amp; Revitalization Following the death of Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Assyrian Empire fell into a period of stasis in which it neither expanded nor declined. While the whole of the Near East fell into a 'dark age' following the so-called Bronze Age Collapse of c. 1200 BCE, Ashur and its empire remained relatively intact. Unlike other civilizations in the region which suffered a complete collapse, the Assyrians seem to have experienced something closer to simply a loss of forward momentum. The empire certainly cannot be said to have 'stagnated', because the culture, including the emphasis on military campaign and the value of conquest, continued; however, there was no significant expansion of the empire and civilization as it was under Tukulti-Ninurta I.
This all changed with the rise of Tiglath Pileser I to the throne (reigned c. 1115-1076 BCE). According to Leick:
He was one of the most important Assyrian kings of this period, largely because of his wide-ranging military campaigns, his enthusiasm for building projects, and his interest in cuneiform tablet collections. He campaigned widely in Anatolia, where he subjugated numerous peoples, and ventured as far as the Mediterranean Sea. In the capital city, Assur, he built a new palace and established a library, which held numerous tablets on all kinds of scholarly subjects. He also issued a legal decree, the so-called Middle Assyrian Laws, and wrote the first royal annals. He was also one of the first Assyrian kings to commission parks and gardens stocked with foreign and native trees and plants (171).
Tiglath Pileser I
Tiglath Pileser I revitalized the economy and the military through his campaigns, adding more resources and skilled populations to the Assyrian Empire. Literacy and the arts flourished, and the preservation initiative the king took regarding cuneiform tablets would serve as the model for the later ruler, Ashurbanipal 's, famous library at Nineveh . Upon Tiglath Pileser I's death, his son, Asharid-apal-ekur, took the throne and reigned for two years during which time he continued his father's policies without alteration. He was succeeded by his brother Ashur-bel-Kala who initially reigned successfully until challenged by a usurper who threw the empire into civil war. Although the rebellion was crushed and the participants executed, the turmoil allowed certain regions that had been tightly held by Assyria to break free and among these was the area known as Eber Nari (modern day Syria , Lebanon, and Israel ), which had been particularly important to the empire because of the well-established sea ports along the coast. The Aramaeans now held Eber Nari and began making incursions from there into the rest of the empire. At this same time, the Amorites of Babylon and the city of Mari asserted themselves and tried to break the hold of the empire. The kings who followed Ashur-bel-Kala (among them, Shalmaneser II and Tiglath Pileser II) managed to maintain the core of the empire around Ashur but were unsuccessful in re-taking Eber Nari or driving the Aramaeans and Amorites completely from the borders. The empire steadily shrank through repeated attacks from outside and rebellions from within and, with no king strong enough to revitalize the military, Assyria again entered a period of stasis in which they held what they could of the empire together but could do nothing else.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire The Late Empire (also known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire) is the one most familiar to students of ancient history as it is the period of the largest expansion of the empire. It is also the era which most decisively gives the Assyrian Empire the reputation it has for ruthlessness and cruelty. The historian Kriwaczek writes:
Assyria must surely have among the worst press notices of any state in history. Babylon may be a byname for corruption, decadence and sin but the Assyrians and their famous rulers, with terrifying names like Shalmaneser, Tiglath-Pileser , Sennacherib , Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, rate in the popular imagination just below Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan for cruelty, violence, and sheer murderous savagery (208).
This reputation is further noted by the historian Simon Anglim and others. Anglim writes:
While historians tend to shy away from analogies, it is tempting to see the Assyrian Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 900-612 BC, as a historical forebear of Nazi Germany: an aggressive, murderously vindictive regime supported by a magnificent and successful war machine. As with the German army of World War II, the Assyrian army was the most technologically and doctrinally advanced of its day and was a model for others for generations afterwards. The Assyrians were the first to make extensive use of iron weaponry not only were iron weapons superior to bronze , but could be mass-produced, allowing the equipping of very large armies indeed (12).
While the reputation for decisive, ruthless, military tactics is understandable, the comparison with the Nazi regime is less so. Unlike the Nazis, the Assyrians treated the conquered people they relocated well (as already addressed above) and considered them Assyrians once they had submitted to central authority. There was no concept of a 'master race' in Assyrian policies; everyone was considered an asset to the empire whether they were born Assyrian or were assimilated into the culture. Kriwaczek notes, "In truth, Assyrian warfare was no more savage than that of other contemporary states. Nor, indeed, were the Assyrians notably crueler than the Romans, who made a point of lining their roads with thousands of victims of crucifixion dying in agony" (209). The only fair comparison between Germany in WWII and the Assyrians, then, is the efficiency of the military and the size of the army, and this same comparison could be made with ancient Rome .
These massive armies still lay in the future, however, when the first king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire came to power. The rise of the king Adad Nirari II (c. 912-891 BCE) brought the kind of revival Assyria needed. Adad Nirari II re-conquered the lands which had been lost, including Eber Nari, and secured the borders. The defeated Aramaeans were executed or deported to regions within the heartland of Assyria. He also conquered Babylon but, learning from the mistakes of the past, refused to plunder the city and, instead, entered into a peace agreement with the king in which they married each other's daughters and pledged mutual loyalty. Their treaty would secure Babylon as a powerful ally, instead of a perennial problem, for the next 80 years.
Assyrian Soldiers
Military Expansion &amp; the New View of the God The kings who followed Adad Nirari II continued the same policies and military expansion. Tukulti Ninurta II (891-884 BCE) expanded the empire to the north and gained further territory toward the south in Anatolia, while Ashurnasirpal II (884-859 BCE) consolidated rule in the Levant and extended Assyrian rule through Canaan . Their most common method of conquest was through siege warfare which would begin with a brutal assault on the city. Anglim writes:
More than anything else, the Assyrian army excelled at siege warfare, and was probably the first force to carry a separate corps of engineers...Assault was their principal tactic against the heavily fortified cities of the Near East. They developed a great variety of methods for breaching enemy walls: sappers were employed to undermine walls or to light fires underneath wooden gates, and ramps were thrown up to allow men to go over the ramparts or to attempt a breach on the upper section of wall where it was the least thick. Mobile ladders allowed attackers to cross moats and quickly assault any point in defences. These operations were covered by masses of archers, who were the core of the infantry. But the pride of the Assyrian siege train were their engines. These were multistoried wooden towers with four wheels and a turret on top and one, or at times two, battering rams at the base (186).
Advancements in military technology were not the only, or even the primary, contribution of the Assyrians as, during this same time, they made significant progress in medicine , building on the foundation of the Sumerians and drawing on the knowledge and talents of those who had been conquered and assimilated. Ashurnasirpal II made the first systematic lists of plants and animals in the empire and brought scribes with him on campaign to record new finds. Schools were established throughout the empire but were only for the sons of the wealthy and nobility. Women were not allowed to attend school or hold positions of authority even though, earlier in Mesopotamia, women had enjoyed almost equal rights. The decline in women's rights correlates to the rise of Assyrian monotheism. As the Assyrian armies campaigned throughout the land, their god Ashur went with them but, as Ashur was previously linked with the temple of that city and had only been worshipped there, a new way of imagining the god became necessary in order to continue that worship in other locales. Kriwaczek writes:
One might pray to Ashur not only in his own temple in his own city, but anywhere. As the Assyrian empire expanded its borders, Ashur was encountered in even the most distant places. From faith in an omnipresent god to belief in a single god is not a long step. Since He was everywhere, people came to understand that, in some sense, local divinities were just different manifestations of the same Ashur (231).
This unity of vision of a supreme deity helped to further unify the regions of the empire. The different gods of the conquered peoples, and their various religious practices, became absorbed into the worship of Ashur, who was recognized as the one true god who had been called different names by different people in the past but who now was clearly known and could be properly worshipped as the universal deity. Regarding this, Kriwaczek writes:
Belief in the transcendence rather than immanence of the divine had important consequences. Nature came to be desacralized, deconsecrated. Since the gods were outside and above nature, humanity - according to Mesopotamian belief created in the likeness of the gods and as servant to the gods - must be outside and above nature too. Rather than an integral part of the natural earth, the human race was now her superior and her ruler. The new attitude was later summed up in Genesis 1:26: `And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth' That is all very well for men, explicitly singled out in that passage. But for women it poses an insurmountable difficulty. While males can delude themselves and each other that they are outside, above, and superior to nature, women cannot so distance themselves, for their physiology makes them clearly and obviously part of the natural world...It is no accident that even today those religions that put most emphasis on God's utter transcendence and the impossibility even to imagine His reality should relegate women to a lower rung of existence, their participation in public religious worship only grudgingly permitted, if at all (229-230).
The Assyrian culture became increasingly cohesive with the expansion of the empire, the new understanding of the deity, and the assimilation of the people from the conquered regions. Shalmaneser III (859-824 BCE) expanded the empire up through the coast of the Mediterranean and received tribute from the wealthy Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon . He also defeated the Armenian kingdom of Urartu which had long proved a significant nuisance to the Assyrians. Following his reign, however, the empire erupted in civil war as the king Shamshi Adad V (824-811 BCE) fought with his brother for control. Although the rebellion was put down, expansion of the empire halted after Shalmaneser III. The regent Shammuramat (also famously known as Semiramis who became the mythical goddess-queen of the Assyrians in later tradition) held the throne for her young son Adad Nirari III from c. 811-806 BCE and, in that time, secured the borders of the empire and organized successful campaigns to put down the Medes and other troublesome populaces in the north. When her son came of age, she was able to hand him a stable and sizeable empire which Adad Nirari III then expanded further. Following his reign, however, his successors preferred to rest on the accomplishments of others and the empire entered another period of stagnation. This was especially detrimental to the military which languished under kings like Ashur Dan III and Ashur Nirari V.
The Great Kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire The empire was revitalized by Tiglath Pileser III (745-727 BCE) who reorganized the military and restructured the bureaucracy of the government. According to Anglim, Tiglath Pileser III "carried out extensive reforms of the army, reasserted central control over the empire, reconquered the Mediterranean seaboard, and even subjugated Babylon. He replaced conscription with a manpower levy imposed on each province and also demanded contingents from vassal states" (14). He defeated the kingdom of Uratu, which had long troubled Assyrian rulers, and subjugated the region of Syria. Under Tiglath Pileser III's reign, the Assyrian army became the most effective military force in history up until that time and would provide a model for future armies in organization, tactics, training, and efficiency.
King Tiglath-pileser III
Tiglath Pileser III was followed by Shalmaneser V (727-722 BCE) who continued the king's policies, and his successor, Sargon II (722-705 BCE) improved upon them and expanded the empire further. Even though Sargon II's rule was contested by nobles, who claimed he had seized the throne illegally, he maintained the cohesion of the empire. Following Tiglath Pileser III's lead, Sargon II was able to bring the empire to its greatest height. He was followed by Sennacherib (705-681 BCE) who campaigned widely and ruthlessly, conquering Israel, Judah, and the Greek provinces in Anatolia. His sack of Jerusalem is detailed on the 'Taylor Prism', a cuneiform block describing Sennacherib's military exploits which was discovered in 1830 CE by Britain 's Colonel Taylor, in which he claims to have captured 46 cities and trapped the people of Jerusalem inside the city until he overwhelmed them. His account is contested, however, by the version of events described in the biblical book of II Kings, chapters 18-19, where it is claimed that Jerusalem was saved by divine intervention and Sennacherib's army was driven from the field. The biblical account does relate the Assyrian conquest of the region, however.
Sennacherib's military victories increased the wealth of the empire. He moved the capital to Nineveh and built what was known as "the Palace without a Rival". He beautified and improved upon the city's original structure, planting orchards and gardens. The historian Christopher Scarre writes,
Sennacherib's palace had all the usual accoutrements of a major Assyrian residence: colossal guardian figures and impressively carved stone reliefs (over 2,000 sculptured slabs in 71 rooms). Its gardens, too, were exceptional. Recent research by British Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley has suggested that these were the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Later writers placed the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, but extensive research has failed to find any trace of them. Sennacherib's proud account of the palace gardens he created at Nineveh fits that of the Hanging Gardens in several significant details (231).
Ignoring the lessons of the past, however, and not content with his great wealth and the luxury of the city, Sennacherib drove his army against Babylon, sacked it, and looted the temples. As earlier in history, the looting and destruction of the temples of Babylon was seen as the height of sacrilege by the people of the region and also by Sennacherib's sons who assassinated him in his palace at Nineveh in order to placate the wrath of the gods. Although they certainly would have been motivated to murder their father for the throne (after he chose his youngest son, Esarhaddon, as heir in 683 BCE, snubbing them) they would have needed a legitimate reason to do so; and the destruction of Babylon provided them with one.
Stone Monument of Esarhaddon
His son Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE) took the throne, and one of his first projects was to rebuild Babylon. He issued an official proclamation which claimed that Babylon had been destroyed by the will of the gods owing to the city's wickedness and lack of respect for the divine. Nowhere in his proclamation does it mention Sennacherib or his role in the destruction of the city but makes clear that the gods chose Esarhaddon as the divine means for restoration: "Once during a previous ruler's reign there were bad omens. The city insulted its gods and was destroyed at their command. They chose me, Esarhaddon, to restore everything to its rightful place, to calm their anger, and soothe their rage." The empire flourished under his reign. He successfully conquered Egypt (which Sennacherib had tried and failed to do) and established the empire's borders as far north as the Zagros Mountains (modern day Iran) and as far south as Nubia (modern Sudan) with a span from west to east of the Levant (modern day Lebanon to Israel) through Anatolia (Turkey). His successful campaigns, and careful maintenance of the government, provided the stability for advances in medicine, literacy, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and the arts. Durant writes:
In the field of art, Assyria equaled her preceptor Babylonia and in bas-relief surpassed her. Stimulated by the influx of wealth into Ashur, Kalakh, and Nineveh, artists and artisans began to produce - for nobles and their ladies, for kings and palaces, for priests and temples - jewels of every description, cast metal as skilfully designed and finely wrought as on the great gates at Balawat, and luxurious furniture of richly carved and costly woods strengthened with metal and inlaid with gold , silver, bronze, or precious stones (278).
In order to secure the peace, Esarhaddon's mother, Zakutu (also known as Naqia-Zakutu) entered into vassal treaties with the Persians and the Medes requiring them to submit in advance to his successor. This treaty, known as the Loyalty Treaty of Naqia-Zakutu, ensured the easy transition of power when Esarhaddon died preparing to campaign against the Nubians and rule passed to the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE). Ashurbanipal was the most literate of the Assyrian rulers and is probably best known in the modern day for the vast library he collected at his palace at Nineveh. Though a great patron of the arts and culture, Ashurbanipal could be just as ruthless as his predecessors in securing the empire and intimidating his enemies. Kriwaczek writes, "Which other imperialist would, like Ashurbanipal, have commissioned a sculpture for his palace with decoration showing him and his wife banqueting in their garden, with the struck-off head and severed hand of the King of Elam dangling from trees on either side, like ghastly Christmas baubles or strange fruit?" (208). He decisively defeated the Elamites and expanded the empire further to the east and north. Recognizing the importance of preserving the past, he then sent envoys to every point in the lands under his control and had them retrieve or copy the books of that city or town, bringing all back to Nineveh for the royal library.
Ashurbanipal ruled over the empire for 42 years and, in that time, campaigned successfully and ruled efficiently. The empire had grown too large, however, and the regions were overtaxed. Further, the vastness of the Assyrian domain made it difficult to defend the borders. As great in number as the army remained, there were not enough men to keep garrisoned at every significant fort or outpost. When Ashurbanipal died in 627 BCE, the empire began to fall apart. His successors Ashur-etli-Ilani and Sin-Shar-Ishkun were unable to hold the territories together and regions began to break away. The rule of the Assyrian Empire was seen as overly harsh by its subjects, in spite of whatever advancements and luxuries being an Assyrian citizen may have provided, and former vassal states rose in revolt.
King Ashurbanipal
In 612 BCE Nineveh was sacked and burned by a coalition of Babylonians, Persians, Medes, and Scythians , among others. The destruction of the palace brought the flaming walls down on the library of Ashurbanipal and, although it was far from the intention, preserved the great library, and the history of the Assyrians, by baking hard and burying the clay tablet books. Kriwaczek writes, "Thus did Assyria's enemies ultimately fail to achieve their aim when they razed Ashur and Nineveh in 612 BCE, only fifteen years after Ashurbanipal's death: the wiping out of Assyria's place in history" (255). Still, the destruction of the great Assyrian cities was so complete that, within two generations of the empire's fall, no one knew where the cities had been. The ruins of Nineveh were covered by the sands and lay buried for the next 2,000 years.
Legacy of Assyria Thanks to the Greek historian Herodotus , who considered the whole of Mesopotamia 'Assyria', scholars have long known the culture existed (as compared to the Sumerians who were unknown to scholarship until the 19th century CE). Mesopotamian scholarship was traditionally known as Assyriology until relatively recently (though that term is certainly still in use), because the Assyrians were so well known through the primary sources of the Greek and Roman writers. Through the expanse of their empire, the Assyrians spread Mesopotamian culture to the other regions of the world, which have, in turn, impacted cultures world-wide up to the present day. Durant writes:
Through Assyria's conquest of Babylon, her appropriation of the ancient city's culture, and her dissemination of that culture throughout her wide empire; through the long Captivity of the Jews, and the great influence upon them of Babylonian life and thought; through the Persian and Greek conquests which then opened with unprecedented fullness and freedom all the roads of communication and trade between Babylon and the rising cities of Ionia , Asia Minor, and Greece - through these and many other ways the civilization of the Land between the Rivers passed down into the cultural endowment of our race. In the end nothing is lost; for good or evil, every event has effects forever (264).
Tiglath Pileser III had introduced Aramaic to replace Akkadian as the lingua franca of the empire and, as Aramaic survived as a written language, this allowed later scholars to decipher Akkadian writings and then Sumerian. The Assyrian conquest of Mesopotamia, and the expansion of the empire throughout the Near East, brought Aramaic to regions as near as Israel and as far as Greece and, in this way, Mesopotamian thought became infused with those cultures and a part of their literary and cultural heritage. Following the decline and rupture of the Assyrian empire, Babylon assumed supremacy in the region from 605-549 BCE. Babylon then fell to the Persians under Cyrus the Great who founded the Achaemenid Empire (549-330 BCE) which fell to Alexander the Great and, after his death, was part of the Seleucid Empire .
The region of Mesopotamia corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Syria, and part of Turkey was the area at this time known as Assyria and, when the Seleucids were driven out by the Parthians, the western section of the region, formerly known as Eber Nari and then Aramea, retained the name Syria. The Parthians gained control of the region and held it until the coming of Rome in 115 CE, and then the Sassanid Empire held supremacy in the area from 226-650 CE until, with the rise of Islam and the Arabian conquests of the 7th century CE, Assyria ceased to exist as a national entity. Among the greatest of their achievements, however, was the Aramaic alphabet , imported into the Assyrian government by Tiglath Pileser III from the conquered region of Syria. Aramaean was easier to write than Akkadian and so older documents collected by kings such as Ashurbanipal were translated from Akkadian into Aramaic, while newer ones were written in Aramaic and ignored the Akkadian. The result was that thousands of years of history and culture were preserved for future generations, and this is the greatest of Assyria's legacies.
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